New restaurant inspection law worries officials

View full sizeDan Gleiter, The Patriot-NewsAll restaurant and cafeteria inspections, including those done locally, will soon be online under a new law. Some officials fear inspectors will be overwhelmed.

A new restaurant inspection law could put a strain on city and municipal health officials.

Gov. Ed Rendell recently signed into law a measure that standardizes restaurant inspections, whether done by the state or a local inspector. It also requires all restaurant inspections statewide to be submitted to the state Department of Agriculture’s online database.

The department already maintains the database for the roughly 40,000 establishments it inspects, but cities, counties or municipalities that conduct their own inspections were not required to forward their reports or follow the same inspection guidelines.

And in some cases, local officials don’t know how their small inspection force will meet the new requirements.

Beginning Jan. 22, all inspections will be searchable online in the state’s database. Inspections also must be done according to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s National Model Retail Food Code.

Under the law, restaurants, cafeterias or other establishments that fail a re-inspection can be charged a fee for second and subsequent re-inspections so taxpayers aren’t forced to shoulder the extra cost.

“The law brings together what had been a fractured food safety system with no standardized inspection criteria into one that is cohesive and based on one model,” said Gary Tuma, spokesman for Rendell.

The proposal also provides transparency since diners can find out the safety and cleanliness of any restaurant statewide in one place, said state Rep. Mike Carroll, D-Luzerne County, who sponsored the measure.

Carroll said the law was prompted by several things, including a scathing 2005 report by state Auditor General Jack Wagner that identified deficiencies with food inspections. Personally, Carroll said, he had a stake in sponsoring the legislation since he and his daughter have food allergies.

“This struck close to home,” Carroll said. “It really is a concern when we go out to dinner to make sure food is handled properly.”

Diners in downtown Harrisburg had mixed opinions as to whether they’d look at the reports when they’re available next month.

Liz Neff of Lebanon County and Terri Sanders of Wormleysburg said the website would not be something they’d check on a daily basis. The quality of a restaurant’s food and word of mouth would weigh more heavily in where they choose to eat out, they said.

John Sallinger of Lower Paxton Twp. said that if a place looks OK and gets a good word from people he knows, he’ll eat there. He said he wouldn’t first check out inspection reports.

But others said knowing the inspections will be there makes them more likely to take a look.

“If a place is dirty, I’m not going to eat there,” said Jeff Kreiser of Harrisburg. “If I’m going to eat out, I want a clean place.”

The Pennsylvania Restaurant Association came out in favor of the law’s major changes when it was before state lawmakers. Eric Roman, owner of Second Street Pizza in downtown Harrisburg, recently echoed that support.

“It’s nice because it keeps all the restaurants in check,” Roman said of the new law.

Roman took a food safety course offered by Penn State, so he knows what an inspector will look for. He makes sure that his freezers are at the proper temperature and that foods are packed correctly because Harrisburg’s inspector “could walk in anytime,” he said.

Despite the law’s positives, some local officials said a provision that requires all eateries to be inspected annually and one that eliminates shared jurisdiction with state inspectors could strain their health officials. Many municipalities have one official to handle inspections on top of other sanitation duties.

Harrisburg has more than 450 food establishments but only one person to inspect them, city spokesman Chuck Ardo said.

“It’s possible that part [of the law] could present a challenge to the city,” Ardo said. “The city’s financial situation precludes it from hiring any more health inspectors at this point.”

As regulations for the new law are developed, arrangements could be made for shared control between a city and state inspectors in those kinds of cases, said Nicole Bucher, a state Agriculture Department spokeswoman.

Harrisburg, Swatara Twp., York and Hanover are among the local governments that voluntarily send their inspections to the state for inclusion in the online database.

Karen Dunkle, the health official for East Pennsboro Twp., said she inspects the township’s 95 or so food establishments twice a year. She also uses the FDA inspection standards, so the new law won’t force her to learn a new system or alter her inspection process, she said.

But a streamlining provision of the law eliminates cases of overlapping jurisdiction, which may add more work for local officials such as Dunkle.

For example, Dunkle said she inspects the delis and food bars at minimarts and grocery stores, but state inspectors come into the same stores to handle the other areas.

Beginning in January, Dunkle will inspect the entire store, which means a one-hour job will take several hours instead.

“It’s going to add a little bit more onto us, but we’ll find a way to fit it in,” Dunkle said.

Bucher estimated that jurisdictions overlap about 10,000 times a year. By alleviating the state’s 67 health sanitarians of those duties, they will have more time to pick up inspections from municipalities who decide to turn the responsibility over to the state.

More local entities are asking the state to take over their inspections, including several midstate municipalities to recently make the switch: Lemoyne, Mechanicsburg and Palmyra. Officials said 167 local entities do their own inspections of about 60,000 food establishments.

Despite the extra work, Dunkle said the new law will help inspectors spot trends. If inspectors in the midstate find E. coli in the lettuce of a chain restaurant, for example, the unified system will make it easier to spot that trend and start asking questions about where the ingredient is coming from.

Agriculture officials are meeting with local food inspectors Thursday to explain nuances of the law and answer their questions, Bucher said. Some municipal officials said that meeting will be key to understanding how the new law affects them.

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